Family of man killed by his Model X on autopilot sues Tesla

[Silentprototipe]

As ive been saying for a while. Tesla's are great but I personally wouldnt trust autopilot with my life. Autopilot is pretty much a do it at your own risk deal. Its cool and handy but it can go very wrong very fast 

[XR6]

3 hours ago, kuhnertdm said:

Tesla's defense here is almost guaranteed to be "If you don't have perfect attention to the road and have your hands on the wheel at all times (Note: Defeating the purpose of autopilot), then we're not responsible if autopilot kills you".

Yes, and the reason why is because Autopilot is still just a driver assistance system. It's not a fully autonomous driving system and therefore you should not expect it to handle everything for you. All it does is take effort out of driving.

 

You still need to have attention to the road and have your hands on the wheel in case something fails, Tesla advertise this and when autopilot is engaged the car will even display a warning as soon as you take your hands off the wheel. 

 

The blame is on Mr. Huang here, it seems he expected Autopilot to be completely autonomous and that it would take over the controls for him despite the statements from Tesla and the warnings on the car's dashboard about how it's merely a driver assistance system and that the driver still needs to be ready to take control of the car at any time.

[yolosnail]

1 minute ago, Silentprototipe said:

As ive been saying for a while. Tesla's are great but I personally wouldnt trust autopilot with my life. Autopilot is pretty much a do it at your own risk deal. Its cool and handy but it can go very wrong very fast 

I wouldn't trust it with my life, but I'd certainly trust it over some of the people I see on the road!

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, yolosnail said:

Except if you have your hands on the wheel and pay attention, like you are supposed to, if the car suddenly turns the wheel, the pressure of your hands staying still is enough to disengage the AutoPilot system and for you to take control. The whole point of keeping your hands on the wheel is for you to basically drive the car with no effort. In an ideal world, the steering wheel should be turning exactly when you would have done it yourself, hence why if you put any force onto the wheel that it's not expecting, it cancels AutoPilot and expects you to take over

Does that mean you have to exactly replicate the movements whenever the car turns? That's cruise control, not autopilot. Regardless, there can be situations where suddenly handing control over to the driver can catch them off guard even if they're paying attention. At high speeds that can be fatal.

3 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

Cars with auto-pilot are easily attractive to lazy "drivers".

Maybe, but in an ideal world where they can actually be trusted to drive themselves that's not a bad thing.

[Silentprototipe]

1 minute ago, yolosnail said:

I wouldn't trust it with my life, but I'd certainly trust it over some of the people I see on the road!

Oh definately . For real though the autopilot feature is very ehhhh. Im more into Tesla's over the acceleration  

[yolosnail]

Just now, Sauron said:

Does that mean you have to exactly replicate the movements whenever the car turns? That's cruise control, not autopilot. Regardless, there can be situations where suddenly handing control over to the driver can catch them off guard even if they're paying attention. At high speeds that can be fatal.

Maybe, but in an ideal world where they can actually be trusted to drive themselves that's not a bad thing.

Exactly, AutoPilot is enhanced cruise control not full self driving. It takes the effort out of driving, not taking over driving completely.

 

[Sauron]

10 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

Exactly, AutoPilot is enhanced cruise control not full self driving. It takes the effort out of driving, not taking over driving completely.

Then why is it called autopilot?

Also I would argue keeping your hands on the wheel (and steering), your feet on the pedals and you eyes on the road is 100% of the effort driving usually requires. Cruise control helps keep a steady speed but that's it.

[D13H4RD]

Funny thing is that the systems that Autopilot uses aren’t new.....at all.

 

Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Departure Warning and Prevention alongside Forward Collision Warning and Mitigation are all things we’ve seen before..........on a 2003 Japanese-market Honda Accord

[D13H4RD]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Then why is it called autopilot?

Because it is able to partially operate the vehicle under specific conditions, hence its classification as a Level 2 autonomous system.

 

One thing to note is that a modern airliner like a Boeing 777 has an autopilot (where the Tesla system is named after). However, despite the highly advanced automation that exists, there's always at least one human pilot on-board (usually two or more) should something occur. The same needs to apply to Tesla's system. While it can drive itself, it still requires the human operator to monitor and take control where necessary. The recent patch which undid the fix that caused cars to veer into dividers by mistake is proof of that. We're not even close to the level where vehicles are able to completely drive on their own without human intervention in from point A to point B, so it needs to be emphasized that while Autopilot is able to operate the vehicle on its own, it still requires the driver to focus and monitor the situation as it's a driver assistance system at heart.

 

6 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

Why are things like autopilot even allowed? It seems like an bad idea and give its track recorded I don't see why anyone would want to see more cars with it. 

Autopilot is around for ages in other luxury cars. It just wasn't named as such. It was usually just named as a bunch of separate systems like adaptive cruise control, forward collision mitigation and blind-spot assist, with no real name to unify them as a package. Autopilot is basically those systems unified under a singular name.

[yolosnail]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Then why is it called autopilot?

Also I would argue keeping your hands on the wheel (and steering), your feet on the pedals and you eyes on the road is 100% of the effort driving usually requires. Cruise control helps keep a steady speed but that's it.

Because marketing.

 

I know people who use AutoPilot and they say that they actually pay more attention to the road when they use AutoPilot than when they drive themselves.

[Zando_]

1 hour ago, Uptivuptiz said:

*Laughs, then facepalms*

How are you facepalming with no hands? 

[Misanthrope]

So...how long before the brilliant PR mind of Musk calls the dead guy a pedophile and securities also go after Tesla for him causing a catastrophic loss in revenue to investors not only on the account of the autopilot but also Elon's dumbass?

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

I would not call it ages. 15 or so years is not ages. Even then it was not seen in as meany cars like it is today. The ford edge and jeep grand craven even have it as an option. Most  decent cars have it in some from or anther as an option.

And give it time, these system will stop working right and kick in when they are not suppose too.

That much is considered quite a long time in the car world, especially one where technology is progressing at an increasingly rapid rate.

 

The only thing I ask from these systems is for me to easily be able to switch them off entirely when I don't want them.

[BuckGup]

People trust autopilot too much. They get lazy and think they can be distracted or have there hands off the wheel. It’s not perfect obviously but it should only be used for line keep, auto breaking, and accident avoidance right now IMO. I don’t trust it enough to use full autopilot as there are too many variables it has yet to address. Not everyone drives in sunny California with perfect roads

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

No its not ages in the car would, 40+ years is not even ages to many. I take is your rather young.

Eh, the car world sees things differently. I recall hearing a Porsche guy stating that not having a new model for over 10 years is already getting really long in the tooth.

 

I'm 22 this year, and I've witnessed quite a lot of change in cars during that. Not all of which are for the better. If you ask me, I'd rather have an old Sierra Cosworth even though prices on those are shooting up.

[lewdicrous]

If this was supposed to happen when AP is enabled, then maybe there's more to this story than anyone (public, news, etc) knows.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Bullshit, you're just calling it tomato with a different accent. AutoPilot means self driving. Otherwise they would call it "drive assist".

Please show me one "autopilot" system that is 100% independent and still called "autopilot" and not "self-driving AI". FYI: "autopilots" don't even always have computer connected to them and mostly they don't include AI.

 

You are calling a potato tomato and arguing basicly potato is tomato because it's in the bedroom instead of kitchen or garden.

 

@Sauron

It's called autopilot because it is autopilot. Autopilots main task is to take the control of the vehicle and free the pilot/steerer/driver to do other things important for the journey, like monitoring radar, weather and radio communications. Also autopilots are quite old inventions, first ones in planes were developed 1912 and first autopilot for ships were in early-1920's. What people are mistaking as autopilot is the self-driving AI which are completely different things (autopilot being flight/sail/driving assistance and self-driving AI being displacer of a driver/pilot).

[Jtalk4456]

First off, if the information in the article is correct then the title is very misleading and needs to be changed.

Quote

Family of man killed by his Model X on autopilot sues Tesla

This is intentionally leading those who do not read fully into to believe that it is already determined that autopilot was at fault, which it seems is the opposite of the truth.

1 hour ago, kuhnertdm said:

1. accelerated into and crashed into a highway median

and now his family is suing Tesla for a variety of allegations including

2.product liability, defective product design, failure to warn, breach of warranty

3. intentional and negligent misrepresentation and false advertising

4. They are also naming the California DoT in the suit, as they failed to replace a crash attenuator guard on the median after a previous crash there, which contributed to the damage on this crash.

 

5. After news of the crash surfaced back in March of 2018, Tesla was quick to release a public statement blaming Huang for the crash. They were a party to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the crash, and released a report of the incident without approval from the NTSB. This led to the NTSB voicing public disapproval of Tesla's actions, resulting in Musk attacking the safety board on Twitter. Subsequently, Tesla stated publicly that they withdrew from being a party in the investigation, but the NTSB later released a statement that this was not true, and they were actually removed from the investigation by the NTSB following their premature release of the report, in an effort to blame Huang.

 

6. The report released by Tesla indicates a few things about the crash. First, the incident occurred in literal broad daylight (used by Tesla as evidence that Huang was not paying attention, but could also be used as evidence that even in ideal conditions, autopilot is dangerous). Secondly, Tesla brought attention to the fact that the vehicle displayed multiple warnings for Huang having his hands off of the wheel for too long. The report shows that every one of these warnings happened more than 15 minutes before the crash. It also shows that Huang's hands were not detected as "on the wheel" for 34 of the 60 seconds before impact, and that there was no manual action taken to avoid the crash.

 

7. Opinion: It seems that the suit (if not settled, which I hope it won't be) is very quickly going to shift its focus to Tesla's advertising of autopilot functionality in its cars. Tesla's defense here is almost guaranteed to be "If you don't have perfect attention to the road and have your hands on the wheel at all times (Note: Defeating the purpose of autopilot), then we're not responsible if autopilot kills you". Hopefully this can be the case to shut that argument down, as Tesla's advertising thoroughly touts this as something that handles steering/braking/acceleration/etc for you, even down to the literal name of "autopilot" 

8. "Mrs. Huang lost her husband, and two children lost their father because Tesla is beta testing its Autopilot software on live drivers."

1. accelerated? I'd need some more info on this as to why it would be accelerating. Was that the human or the autopilot accelerating?

2. ok, ok, definitely not true, what? In what way was the warranty breached? I don't know the full details here, but this doesn't make sense at a glance.

3. I honestly haven't kept up with what the marketing for this looks like, but i'd imagine there's enough legal jargon saying "not intended to replace the driver and being aware etc. that this will not go thru. I can imagine it causing some public backlash and probably a strategy change on the part of any company with a feature like this. And to clarify that point, people seem to forget that tesla is not the only one doing this.

https://www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-cruise

I will say though I like the term supercruise more to autopilot for the time being until this technology becomes more standard

4. Fair Enough

5. While it seems from what we know that huang WAS the one at fault here, this is another example of Musk getting too passionate about his companies and hurting himself in the process. Given the public fears of autopilot, I would have also made an initial public statement to ease customers and new buyers, but it would have been far more vague and far less of a blaming.

6. Again, IF this stuff is all true, then Huang was at fault. Did Musk react badly, yes, but he was defending his company and his technology, which doesn't seem to have been the fault in this.

7. I agree that "autopilot" needs to be renamed. Again I don't know about their advertising, but just the term itself implies a lot more than it should. I think while the legal case will go almost nowhere, public opinion and outrage will once again be addressed and there will be a lot of fear mongering. As much of a tragedy as each incident is, we need to put this in terms of the larger context. Statistically, there haven't been a lot of self driving crashes. Granted there's also not a lot of the cars out there to crash so that messes with the numbers a bit, but still. If you ask a hundred people to take a math test sans calculator, it's almost a guarantee that most if not all will make at least one error if not multiple errors. That is analogous to human drivers. But then you ask a hundred calculators to take the same test, it will be perfect. The reason we then see crashes and errors is that humans are the ones making this software, designing the inputs and the algorithms. so for context, the failure of self driving cars is like the calculators taking the test, but the person who made the test typed a wrong number at one point, so the calculators didn't get a perfect score. To then say that calculators are a problem and they can't be trusted is a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. Given how little autopilot vehicles crash vs how very often human drivers crash, I'd be far far more trusting of the autopilot than human drivers

Quote

Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44.

https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

8. Again let's not pretend that tesla is the only one with autopilot. Also at some point, every technology has to be tested on live humans, there's no way around that. Every drug has to have clinical trials at some point. To assume we can reach perfection before a public release of any product is just silly.

[D13H4RD]

10 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

That makes a lot since now. Say these things to a car guy of a older gen you would would get laughed at in the face. 15 years is hardly old in automotive terms given how many people still drive cars over 15 years old and a lot is still spend ondevelopments of parts both stock and aftermarket for older cars

Just to note, when I say "old", I don't mean "bad".

 

I have a soft spot for older vehicles because they aren't techno-glorified computers-on-wheels that modern cars have become. Just like how I'm more fond of R32 GT-Rs versus the current R35 GT-R (though one can make the argument that an R32 is also a computer on wheels, albeit much less so).

 

One thing though.

24 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

Look at most small British companies like Morgen,  Caterham or Ariel

Those manufacturers tend to create very small volume cars designed for very specific purposes, mostly track driving or in the case of the Ariel Nomad, serious off-road. So it's not surprising that they don't treat technological progress as seriously as a company like Ford, Honda or Audi. It's just not necessary for their respective applications.

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

However, despite the highly advanced automation that exists, there's always at least one human pilot on-board (usually two or more) should something occur.

And yet nothing ever does unless there's a deeper problem with the plane itself. Planes are different in that the pilot needs to pay attention but not to "steer" in unison with the autopilot or constantly check the road to see if the vehicle is going to crash into another car - a plane pilot always has a lot more time to react if the autopilot messes up. Airliner pilots also undergo extensive training and know more about what the autopilot does and does not do than a random car driver who sees a Tesla ad.

24 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

We're not even close to the level where vehicles are able to completely drive on their own without human intervention in from point A to point B, so it needs to be emphasized that while Autopilot is able to operate the vehicle on its own, it still requires the driver to focus and monitor the situation as it's a driver assistance system at heart.

Then Tesla needs to stop beta testing this on customers. The idea that a patch can suddenly make your car veer into dividers is completely unacceptable; would you fly on a plane with a beta stage autopilot system? Precautions are always good, that doesn't mean you should sell your system under the assumption that if things go wrong there will be a human ready to fix them.

27 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

Because marketing.

 

I know people who use AutoPilot and they say that they actually pay more attention to the road when they use AutoPilot than when they drive themselves.

Sounds like they spent their money well

[The Benjamins]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Bullshit, you're just calling it tomato with a different accent. AutoPilot means self driving. Otherwise they would call it "drive assist".

 

6 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Please show me one "autopilot" system that is 100% independent and still called "autopilot" and not "self-driving AI". FYI: "autopilots" don't even always have computer connected to them and mostly they don't include AI.

 

You are calling a potato tomato and arguing basicly potato is tomato because it's in the bedroom instead of kitchen or garden.

 

 

Autopilot was originally designed as a AID not a pilot replacement. only the modern public assumes autopilot was a full pilot replacement system. The first autopilot systems where no more advanced then cruise control of the 90s

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

 

Quote

In the early days of aviation, aircraft required the continuous attention of a pilot to fly safely. As aircraft range increased, allowing flights of many hours, the constant attention led to serious fatigue. An autopilot is designed to perform some of the tasks of the pilot.

 

Quote

There are three levels of control in autopilots for smaller aircraft. A single-axis autopilot controls an aircraft in the roll axis only; such autopilots are also known colloquially as "wing levellers," reflecting their limitations. A two-axis autopilot controls an aircraft in the pitch axis as well as roll, and may be little more than a "wing leveller" with limited pitch oscillation-correcting ability; or it may receive inputs from on-board radio navigation systems to provide true automatic flight guidance once the aircraft has taken off until shortly before landing; or its capabilities may lie somewhere between these two extremes. A three-axis autopilot adds control in the yaw axis and is not required in many small aircraft.

 

[IWannaBeUniqueMom]

2 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

 hundred years away 

No...just no

[Sauron]

9 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

@Sauron

It's called autopilot because it is autopilot. Autopilots main task is to take the control of the vehicle and free the pilot/steerer/driver to do other things important for the journey, like monitoring radar, weather and radio communications.

Which you can't do on a Tesla - apparently you're supposed to give it your complete undivided attention for the entirety of the voyage otherwise Tesla will refuse to accept any liability for what the system they SELL does to you. You pretty much need to pay MORE attention because you can't know when the car will decide it's a good time to swerve into a wall, whereas you can be pretty confident that your hands won't move of their own volition if you look away for a quarter of a second.

13 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Also autopilots are quite old inventions, first ones in planes were developed 1912 and first autopilot for ships were in early-1920's. What people are mistaking as autopilot is the self-driving AI which are completely different things (autopilot being flight/sail/driving assistance and self-driving AI being displacer of a driver/pilot).

No, people are expecting the autopilot to work like a plane autopilot. If it can't do its thing without requiring full undivided attention by the driver it's not an autopilot - it's a third hand on the wheel. Of course, unlike with a plane there isn't any room for small mistakes on the road. A plane that starts slowly losing height can be corrected by the pilot even a full minute after the fact; a car that misjudges a distance will probably kill you in a few seconds. Which is why this isn't and shouldn't be advertised as an autopilot.

 

Yes, some responsibility on the driver to check the road is acceptable; it would be perfectly fine if the driver was expected to keep their eyes on the road and retake the wheel if the car behaves a bit strangely, e.g. slowing down for no reason or slowly moving too close to the other lane. That doesn't mean the system (and more importantly the system's developers) can just do whatever and blame it on the driver when things go wrong.

[3 Lions]

I've said this before and I'll say it again that Tesla's solution is in NO way shape or form 'autopilot', it is just a package of very good driver assists.  

[Devin92]

36 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Because it is able to partially operate the vehicle under specific conditions, hence its classification as a Level 2 autonomous system.

 

One thing to note is that a modern airliner like a Boeing 777 has an autopilot (where the Tesla system is named after). However, despite the highly advanced automation that exists, there's always at least one human pilot on-board (usually two or more) should something occur. The same needs to apply to Tesla's system. While it can drive itself, it still requires the human operator to monitor and take control where necessary. The recent patch which undid the fix that caused cars to veer into dividers by mistake is proof of that. We're not even close to the level where vehicles are able to completely drive on their own without human intervention in from point A to point B, so it needs to be emphasized that while Autopilot is able to operate the vehicle on its own, it still requires the driver to focus and monitor the situation as it's a driver assistance system at heart.

 

Autopilot is around for ages in other luxury cars. It just wasn't named as such. It was usually just named as a bunch of separate systems like adaptive cruise control, forward collision mitigation and blind-spot assist, with no real name to unify them as a package. Autopilot is basically those systems unified under a singular name.

You comparing a boeing 777 pilot to a normal car driver here though. A pilot went through way more training than a car driver, and they absolutely know what a plane's autopilot limit.

However for majority of people, who don't follow AI technology and dont know there are different level of automation, they have the impression autopilot is a system that can drive the car for them. At least this is what the wards are suggesting. I think there's a reason why other luxury cars dont call their cruise control or forward collision system 'auto pilot'. It's trying to avoid this kind of misunderstanding and potential (and now real) law suit.